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Aug 31, 2010

Chicken Tonight, Yesterday Afternoon and In Between Meals. A Thirtysomething Married Woman's Take On the Emmy Awards.

My Tuesday posts traditionally benefit from the wit and wisdom of Terry Durack and his weekly restaurant review for the SMH's Good Living section. This week, Terry received fan mail from a 10 year old and made good on her restaurant recommendation to him, an excellent fish and chip shop called The Battery, 15/425 Bourke St, Surry Hills. Isn't it often the difference between children and adults? That a child can sum up all that she likes about something in a few punchy sentences while we in the adult world take our time over well constructed paragraphs and the development of themes and word images.

Like Terry, I have had a great feed of fish and chips (only a few chips picked out of Mr SSG's takeaway container when we were at the fish market last week to load up on the next 3 months of salmon, ling and cod fillets) but I have moved on this week. To chicken. In all it's glorious permuations - the 'real deal' in vaccum sealed packs at Coles, rotisserie chicken from Coles (I Love Coles, it's not just a homebrand, it's also a way of life) in a recent Thai takeaway and in the more ..... synthetic range of chicken products. I think it was being deprived of chicken (and Sydney Thai) whilst I was away. I've seriously eaten chicken for at least one main meal a day since our return to Sydney.

It's not all high end or wholesome cuisine at SSG Manor. Those Otori nuggets were from my Asian supermarket tour in Bankstown last month. They are chicken nugget flavoured corn snacks. They are sweet yet a little salty, it could be that elusive fifth taste of Japanese cuisine, umami. Which is a more exotic way of saying MSG laden.

The Chicken In A Can needs no introduction.

How can anyone resist an ad like that? Is it just me, or does everyone do the chicken dance on their sofas in sync with the animated cans? Perhaps it is just me.

Surprisingly, to paraphrase Jessica Simpson, it does taste like chicken. I had a refrigerated can over my salad and it was fine. No mystery bits, just chicken that looked like chicken. I feel as if I have completed one of life's defining culinary experiences, it's right up there with sampling molecular gastronomy, surely.

This is a close up of my other culinary chicken adventure.

Interestingly, these are lighter than they look. The food equivalent of wearing sack dresses or black footless tights as pants. Happily, the nuggets are a more satisfying if ephemeral experience. There is a real danger in forgetting how many you've eaten they just disappear that quickly.

Speaking of quick disappearances, I am rather hopeful of the next few hours flying past. It's been a long day and I'd love to get home and see Mr SSG and the 2 parcels he is minding for me. I think one is from the land of Apple - Photoshop Elements and the other may well be from the isle of Kiehls.

But before I go, The Emmy Awards. As usual, there were many defining looks and beautiful people out and about. It was great to see that my favourite programmes The Good Wife, Glee and The Modern Family all received acclaim and recognition from their peers on the night.

But this is my favourite photo from the night. It's as close to star worship a thirtysomething married woman gets.

Image courtesy of gofugyourself.com

I love Allan Cumming's and Archie Panjabi's characters almost as much as I love Juliana Margulies'. Can't wait for season 2, or at least the boxed set of season one of The Good Wife.